Southern Vectis route 15
Southern Vectis route 15 was a bus service previously operated by Southern Vectis in the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. It connected the suburb of Haylands with the town centre and bus station. The route began operation on 1 October 2006, and ceased operation on 15 March 2008, when other bus routes were diverted or enhanced to maintain a bus service to these areas. The general daytime frequency of the route was every 30 minutes. History Route 15 was created in the Southern Vectis network change of April 2006 by renumbering the former route 34, a local service from Haylands to Ryde bus station. As well as route 15, services between Ryde, Havenstreet and Newport on route 33 also served Haylands and continue to do so under Wightbus. The service continued basically unchanged until it was withdrawn on 15 March 2008, at which point all journeys were renumbered 29 and the timetable altered slightly. Information from Southern Vectis' black and white interim timetable 16th March - 19th April 2008 A month later, on 20 April 2008, bus journeys to Haylands were transferred to route 4, which already ran through the nearby Binstead Estate.Information from Southern Vectis' Summer 2008 Island Hopping timetable booklet Former services A half hourly service was operated in each direction during the daytime. An hourly Sunday evening service was initially run, but was later withdrawn. Revived route In November 2008 Southern Vectis announced that due to the amalgamation of route 15 into route 4, the increased through journey time from Ryde to East Cowes was damaging end to end traffic on route 4. As full-fare paying customers make more end-to-end trips than local journeys, this resulted in the route significantly under-performing, and there was a potential threat of a complete service cut to the Haylands and Binstead Estate area. From 5 April 2009 route 4 was re-routed to make a through journeys faster with a replacement bus service being put in place for the affected areas of Ryde. One of Southern Vectis' coaches now runs the service half-hourly. However this service will run only between 09:15 and 13:45. From then school services run in the area from about 15:00, with Wightbus route 33 running a service through Haylands at around 17:00. No route number was allocated to the new service, and runs separately under the Moss Motors brand. This is partly due to the limited service the route runs, with no late afternoon or Sunday service. As such, the decision was made not to affiliate it with the "Southern Vectis" brand of regular routes run with modern low floor, low emission buses. Initially a dedicated coach in Moss Tours livery was used with route branding along the top front windscreen, however this has since been sold on and left the company's fleet. Now a mixture of vehicles are used such as open-top buses that are not running services during the winter period. There are some differences to the route the previous service took to the new one operated by Moss Tours. The route no longer serves the bus station and now starts and finnishes at the Commodore Cinema. After serving Lake Hurron in Haylands, buses now travel to Upton Cross, then Newnham Road on Binstead Estate before terminating at the cinema. The revived route, although never officially given a number, is referred to internally within the council as route 12. The new service was launched on 5 April 2009 by island MP Andrew Turner. It is thought the new service would help around 2,000 people and is hoped that if more people can be encouraged to use the route, the level of service will be increased. In July 2009, it was announced that a free bus service for pensioners would be put in place by Ryde Taxis using a vehicle bought specially to cover the Haylands and Binstead service for a trial period of three months. The new service will be hourly running from 1pm to 6:50pm, at which time the current coach service run by Southern Vectis stops. Alongside the bus service, a subsidised door-to-door taxi service is also being run at £1.50 per journey. In April 2010, the Moss Motors route was axed, and replaced by Southern Vectis route 37 See also * List of Southern Vectis bus routes * Transportation on the Isle of Wight References External links * Southern Vectis website - islandbuses.info * Southern Vectis route list R15 Category:Transport on the Isle of Wight Category:Bus routes in England